


Unlearning

by AuditoryCheesecake



Series: A Cheesecake's Tumblr Shorts [29]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dealing With his Feelings, Drabble, Just A Nerd, Light Angst, M/M, No Dialogue At All, Not much plot, Stream of Consciousness, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 07:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11412894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake
Summary: "You learn not to hope for more. You'd be foolish to."





	Unlearning

He’d learned not to hope for more. Or rather, he’d been taught that lesson many times, and tried to learn it. He’d copied it out of the textbook and memorized it, he’d composed essays and speeches that should have won rhetoric awards and could have been used as lesson plans for future students. 

Don’t hope: it’s pointless, it’s painful, it’s dangerous. Don’t make promises: that’s just wasted breath. Don’t wish: the future is not uncertain so much as it is inexorable. Don’t wonder: you can neither give nor receive more than this. Don’t say anything: love is not an illusion, but it is not attainable. Don’t hope.

But for all he was an excellent student, some lessons never stick.

Being in the South has made it harder to remember. Crude as the Fereldans are, they are forthright, and their honesty has begun to infect him. Why not hope? If they can save the world from a crazed darkspawn and the worst of Dorian’s countrymen, why should love be so impossible?

Because, he tell himself, he must go back. Because this cannot last forever. Because Bull is Qunari. Because either one of them might die. Because he might hope for more, but he can’t ask for it.

He can ask to be let into Bull’s room, into his bed. He can ask to try this with the ropes, to fuck Bull in that way. He can ask to be held after, to stay the night, to drink Bull’s tea in the morning. He can ask to share meals over the campfire, he can ask for help mending a tear in his robes. He can ask for too many things. Eventually, Bull will say no.

Like a child testing a new staff, he pushes– both Bull and himself. There must be an edge somewhere. Best to know where it is before he tumbles over it. Can he leave his books in Bull's room while he goes to the kitchen? Can he join the Chargers in the tavern even when their captain is away? Can he joke about their pastimes as Bull does? Can he use magic on Bull in battle? In bed? Can he touch the scarred lines of Bull’s face when he kisses him goodnight and not fear waking up alone?

Yes.

More mornings together, more friends beside them, more touches of Bull’s hand against the small of his back when they stand near each other, more habits built like that: quietly, unconsciously, until it feels wrong to be without it.

He’s happy. Treacherously, dangerously, so. He guesses that Bull must be as well, judging by the way he smiles when Dorian takes his hand in Skyhold’s garden, how he smiles at the clouds and grips his fingers tight. Bull even says he’s happy, in words almost more direct that Dorian can bear. But the South has taught him honesty, and he never really learned how not to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> [you can read and reblog this (and other stuff i've written) on my tumblr!](http://acheesecakewrites.tumblr.com/tagged/new-fic)


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